On the Making of English National Identity

I just so happened to pick this book up by chance while looking for other books on other national identities at the library (specifically eastern European) and I’m really glad I did. Kumar begins the book with a question that I stupidly never even though to ask: Why is there such a thing as a Scottish nationalist, an Irish nationalist, or even a Welsh nationalist, but no English nationalist (except on the far right)? Instead, “English” nationalism gets subsumed under the larger, multinational concept of “British” nationalism.

Kumar argues that rather than having the opportunity to build a discrete English national identity, it was overshadowed by larger imperial ambitions (for example, the incorporation of Wales and Ireland—and later, Scotland—into “England”). In the view of many English people, England is Britain (although you’d be hard-pressed to find an English person who is so explicit about this).

This book is part of the larger debate of when English identity emerged. Some argue that it emerged with Bede, others with the Hundred Years War in the 14th century, more still with the English Civil War or competition with France in the eighteenth century. Kumar disregards all of these views and finds that English national identity never emerged (except in the cultural realm for a short period in the late nineteenth century). Instead, England has always been associated with Britain or the British Empire, so these identities have generally come before “English.” Perhaps more interestingly, Kumar does an excellent job of comparing the English to other peoples of a similar background—notably the Austrians. “Austrian” identity hardly existed until after World War I. Instead, the Habsburg Empire was made up of “Germans” and other ethnicities. It was only after the fall of the Habsburgs that “Austrian” became a thing. The same is true of Turks under the Ottoman Empire, although I think a powerful case could be made that urban Turks at least had a strong sense of their ethnic identity before the fall of the Ottomans.

Although this book was published in 2003, reading it now in 2018 makes it seem more relevant now than ever before. After all, between the recent attacks on British (and English) imperial amnesia and Brexit (which is threatening to tear apart the United Kingdom as we know it), “Britain” may become increasingly less useful as an adjective describing people from England. But, I’m no prophet, and perhaps I will be proven wrong by future events.

Anyways, I’m glad that I came across this work.